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      Trump Wants the Military to Be More Like Trump

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      No president in modern history has done more to put the military in the middle of political and cultural crossfire than Donald Trump.On Tuesday, just one day after he directed active-duty Marines onto the streets of Los Angeles in response to protests against his immigration policies and four days before he plans to oversee an extravagant military parade on his birthday, Mr. Trump stood before a crowd of beret-wearing soldiers at Fort Bragg in North Carolina and dragged them into his own political maelstrom.While past commanders in chief might have chosen to deliver a speech that celebrated the U.S. Army’s history ahead of the service’s 250th anniversary this weekend, Mr. Trump opted instead for a rambling speech that ridiculed “radical left lunatic” politicians, threatened flag-burning protesters and falsely claimed the 2020 election was “rigged.” He also announced his plan to reverse a Biden administration decision and restore the names of Fort Robert E. Lee and six other military bases honoring former Confederate officers.“You know what Nov. 5 was? It was the election of a president that loves you,” Mr. Trump said to scattered applause and cheers from the soldiers.Presidents from both parties have been criticized for politicizing the military, but not one has challenged the military’s time-honored tradition of nonpartisanship as Mr. Trump has. His Fort Bragg speech was just the latest in a string of high-profile efforts to reshape the military more in his own likeness.It began with his administration’s decision to remove senior officers, many Black and female, from positions on the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other command positions reportedly as part of its anti-D.E.I. initiative. It continued with his determination to reinstate and pay former service members who had been discharged after refusing Covid vaccinations in violation of military health mandates. And it was on full display when he sent active-duty troops to create new military zones along the U.S. border with Mexico.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Tusk Government Wins Confidence Vote in Poland

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      Prime Minister Donald Tusk called the vote to seek endorsement of his government after a political opponent won the presidency.Poland’s centrist government won a confidence vote in Parliament on Wednesday, averting political turmoil for the biggest country on the European Union’s eastern flank and a robust supporter of Ukraine.Prime Minister Donald Tusk last week called the vote for legislators to endorse his government, hoping to reassert his authority after the victory of a political opponent, Karol Nawrocki, a nationalist historian, in a presidential election this month.In the vote, 243 lawmakers voted in favor of Mr. Tusk and 210 against, giving him a majority in the 460-member lower house of Parliament.Speaking to Parliament on Wednesday, Mr. Tusk acknowledged that Mr. Nawrocki’s win in the presidential vote would create challenges “greater than we expected.” But, referring to the president’s limited and largely ceremonial duties, he insisted that the result of that election “in no way reduces our responsibility, our duties or the scope of our power or competences.”Mr. Tusk’s victory Wednesday in the confidence vote is a blow for the Law and Justice party, which had been hoping for a possible return to power in the event of early elections. A vote against Mr. Tusk’s government would have required him to resign after about only 18 months in office.Bruised by Mr. Nawrocki’s victory in the presidential poll and under pressure from Law and Justice to resign, Mr. Tusk last week acknowledged the “gravity of the moment,” but, gambling on a confidence vote, he insisted that “we do not intend to take a single step back.”Mr. Nawrocki, like Andrzej Duda, the departing president, is closely aligned with Law and Justice, and his victory over a liberal candidate backed by Mr. Tusk is likely to harden the stalemate between a presidency and a government pulling in opposite directions.The Polish president has no say in setting policy but has veto power over legislation passed by Parliament, a prerogative that has hobbled Mr. Tusk’s government to carry out its agenda. That includes repairing relations with the European Union and reversing changes Law and Justice made during its time in power that compromised the independence of the judiciary and all but banned abortion.Law and Justice lost its parliamentary majority in a 2023 election, but the coalition of legislators that Mr. Tusk put together to form a government has been a fractious alliance made up of liberals, centrists and conservatives that shared little common ground other than opposition to Law and Justice.Anatol Magdziarz More

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      Trump is Pushing Allies Away and Closer Into Each Other’s Arms

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      Important U.S. allies are trying to bolster their ties as the Trump administration shifts priorities and reshapes the world order.New trade deals. Joint sanctions against Israel. Military agreements.America’s closest allies are increasingly turning to each other to advance their interests, deepening their ties as the Trump administration challenges them with tariffs and other measures that are upending trade, diplomacy and defense.Concerned by shifting U.S. priorities under President Trump, some of America’s traditional partners on the world stage have spent the turbulent months since Mr. Trump’s January inauguration focusing on building up their direct relationships, flexing diplomatic muscles and leaving the United States aside.This emerging dynamic involves countries such as Britain, France, Canada and Japan — often referred to by international relations experts as “middle powers” to distinguish them from superpowers like the United States and China.“These are industrialized democracies, allies of the United States, supporting multilateral rules and institutions,” said Roland Paris, a professor of international relations and the director of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa.“And as the international order has been disintegrating, and the United States has been indicating that it’s less willing to underwrite it, what we’ve seen is a shift in the role of middle powers,” he added.That role, Professor Paris said, is characterized by the pursuit of “opportunistic and self-interested initiatives that are still collaborative,” including a slew of smaller agreements over trade and defense involving European countries and Canada.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What Happens to Harvard If Trump Successfully Bars Its International Students?

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      If President Trump makes good on all his threats, Harvard may lose much of its influence and prestige. It could also become even harder to afford.As President Trump and his team dialed up the pressure on Harvard University last month, threatening to bar its international students, the school issued what was at once a warning and a plea.“Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard,” school officials wrote in a lawsuit asking a judge to stop the federal government’s actions.It left unsaid what Harvard, if it were no longer Harvard, would become.It’s a scenario that some inside Harvard are beginning to imagine and plan for as the Trump administration lobs attacks from all angles, seeking to cut the university off from both students and billions of dollars in federal funding.Top leaders at Harvard, one of the nation’s oldest universities, including its provost, John F. Manning, a conservative legal scholar who once clerked for the former Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, are meeting more frequently to strategize.The school’s board of trustees, the Harvard Corporation, has discussed whether hundreds, if not thousands, of people will need to be laid off.And on 8:30 a.m. Zoom calls once or twice a week, administrative officials meet with senior leaders of Harvard’s undergraduate and graduate schools to share updates about the latest Trump developments, which keep coming rapid-fire.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      I Had an Affair With a Politician Who Denies Being Gay. Do I Keep His Secret?

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      Is what happened between us my story to tell?Many years ago, I had a brief relationship with another young man. We had sex once, and he wanted to continue but asked me to keep it secret because he was in politics. I was a hotheaded gay activist, and I refused on principle, ending the affair. He went on to become one of the most prominent politicians in his country. He was a single man for a long time, but when asked about his sexuality he denied being gay. He eventually married a woman and lives a putatively heterosexual life.I am a writer. Is what happened between us my story to tell, or is it his story to (still) hide? Is he entitled to privacy? Am I obligated to keep his name a secret even though I didn’t agree to do that at the time, and when asked to keep it quiet I refused? — Name WithheldFrom the Ethicist:Let’s start with the obvious questions: Why now, after all this time? What would you hope to gain from this disclosure? You say that this man is a prominent politician in “his country” (which is presumably not your own), but you don’t indicate that you think he’s a threat to the common good. Is what moves you a belated desire for recognition? A murky wish to be acknowledged in a story that has long since moved on without you — to insert yourself in someone else’s Wikipedia page?Sexual intimacy presupposes a measure of respect for the privacy of those involved. Would your brief encounter have occurred had you announced in advance that you felt free to publish the names of your sexual partners? And there’s an ethical weight that comes with holding in your hands another person’s private life, or an episode of it, anyway. You don’t know how he now thinks of his own sexuality, what his wife knows, how they’ve shaped their lives together or what accommodations have been made in the privacy of a life that has nothing to do with you anymore. Before you risk bruising another family, perhaps it’s worth closing your laptop and pausing to consider: Do you really have good reason to change course and stop honoring the intimacy of your youthful affair?Once a story like this reaches the media, especially social media, it can spiral far beyond your control. Depending on the political culture of his country, what begins as a personal anecdote can quickly turn into a public spectacle. The result could be more intrusive, more destructive and more lasting than you anticipate — for him, his family and for you. You can send a story out into the world, but you can’t call it home.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Broadway Dreams Were Dashed, Then Rob Madge Knocked on Some Doors

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      The British performer is bringing “My Son’s a Queer (but What Can You Do?)” to City Center this week, after an earlier run was canceled.“Everybody needs a good setback in their life and gosh, 2024 did that for me.”That was Rob Madge, speaking on video last month from their London home. A theater maker who identifies as nonbinary, Madge smiled wide into the camera and, wearing a crisp white guayabera-style shirt that was mostly buttoned, looked as if they were on their way to a “White Lotus” resort happy hour.But Madge wasn’t talking about cocktails and island intrigue. They were recalling dashed Broadway dreams.In February 2024, the Broadway run of Madge’s autobiographical show “My Son’s a Queer (but What Can You Do?)” was postponed just weeks before it was to begin preview performances at the Lyceum Theater. There was talk of opening on Broadway the following season, but that never materialized.In a statement last month, the show’s producers, Tom Smedes and Heather Shields, said “the heartbreaking decision” to call off a Broadway run was because “the risks of launching and sustaining the production were simply too great” for the show’s “long-term health.”The actor in the production, which incorporates projected scenes from the “living room shows” that Madge performed as a kid.Mark SeniorMadge, 28, said having Broadway fall through prompted them to consider difficult and dueling questions, the likes of which plague any theater artist putting work into the world.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      5 Ways to Prevent Falling

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      Small changes and good habits make a difference.If you’ve ever watched children at a playground or visited a skating rink, you’ve undoubtedly seen people of all ages taking tumbles. Falling is never fun, but the consequences become more serious as we get older.More than 14 million adults age 65 and over report falling every year in the United States, and the risk increases with age. In fact, falls are the primary cause of injury-related death among older adults in the United States, and they can result in broken hips, spinal fractures and traumatic brain injuries.But many falls can be prevented, said Dr. Gerald Pankratz, a geriatrician at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. That makes him “optimistic about this issue,” he said.According to a recent policy statement from the American Public Health Association, evidence-based fall prevention strategies can reduce falls by 6 to 36 percent, depending on the intervention.In his practice, Dr. Pankratz said, it is not unusual for people assessed as having a 50 percent chance of falling over the next year to cut their risk in half by taking action to avoid slips and trips.Why falling increases with ageNormal changes in our bodies as we age make us more prone to falling and more likely to experience injuries from those falls, said Dr. David Reuben, a geriatrician at the University of California, Los Angeles.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Fulbright Board Quits, Accusing Trump Administration of Political Interference

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      The board of the prestigious program told the State Department it had no right to cancel scholarships for nearly 200 American professors and researchers.The dozen board members of the prestigious Fulbright program that promotes international educational exchanges resigned on Wednesday because of what they said was political interference by the Trump administration in their operations, according to people familiar with the issues and a board memo obtained by The New York Times.The members are concerned that political appointees at the State Department, which manages the program, are acting illegally by canceling the awarding of Fulbright scholarships to almost 200 American professors and researchers who are prepared to go to universities and other research institutions overseas starting this summer, said the people, including Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire.The board approved those scholars over the winter after a yearlong selection process, and the State Department was supposed to send acceptance letters by April, the people said. But instead, the board learned that the office of public diplomacy at the agency had begun sending rejection letters to the scholars based mainly on their research topics, they said.In addition, the department is reviewing the applications of about 1,200 scholars from other countries who have already been approved by the board to come to the United States, the people said. Those foreign scholars were also supposed to receive acceptance letters around April.The memo written by the board says that members are resigning “rather than endorse unprecedented actions that we believe are impermissible under the law, compromise U.S. national interests and integrity, and undermine the mission and mandates Congress established for the Fulbright program nearly 80 years ago,” according to a copy obtained by The Times.The board posted the memo online on Wednesday morning, after sending a resignation letter to the White House.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More